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RuneScape Classic (also known as RSC, RS1 or RS Classic) was the first official release of RuneScape (DeviousMUD being the precursor). RuneScape Classic was publicly released on 4 January 2001. It was later replaced on 29 March 2004, with what was then known as RuneScape 2.

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DeviousMud (the first original name of RuneScape) is the forerunner of RuneScape Classic, created by Andrew Gower (one of the founders of Jagex) in 1998. DeviousMud was created using Java and 2D graphics. Although never officially released, Andrew Gower re-wrote it and opened a beta, the beta was open for one week before removing. After great success, on the 4th of January 2001, RuneScape (known as RuneScape Classic today) was opened to everyone. Later that year, Andrew Gower, Paul Gower and Constand Tedder formed the company, Jagex. On the 27th of February 2002, the members expansion was released.

Log-in screen for RuneScape Classic

RuneScape Classic was then replaced by RuneScape 2 on the 29th of March 2004. RuneScape 2 was then the live version of the game.

On the 4th of August 2005, Jagex stopped and closed down the free version of RuneScape Classic and so it remains the same today. RuneScape Classic is still open to those who have access. Although it receives little attention in regards to support, such as content, it still receives minor bug-fixes found within the game. The same user account is used for all three games (RSC, OSRS and RS3), but items, skills and progress on each are separate.

On the 15 of January 2006, players who had logged into Classic during the 4th of August 2005 and the 15th of January 2006 could access and play RuneScape Classic. There were numerous reasons why—one being the cost of running the Classic servers.

Jagex has since occasionally re-opened RuneScape Classic to members only with an update on the 11th of November 2009. [1] After the first re-opening of Classic, Jagex decided to re-open the servers to members, old and new every six months. However RuneScape Classic was then discontinued in 2011, no new members were able to gain access to the servers until RuneScape's 15th anniversary in January 2016. [2] The only way to access the servers is from logging into RuneScape Classic during the opening weeks.

RuneScape Classic map

On the 27th of November 2007, Jagex made the decision to close down the RuneScape Classic forums for non-RuneScape Classic players. Although the forums were closed down, there was a thread running in the RuneScapeGeneral forum for those who wished to sign if they wanted to keep on using the forums. After many suggestions and complaints by those who missed the opportunity to sign, Mod Stevew (a Jagex employee) added a new sticky thread to the Forum Feedback forum for others to sign, provided their account was a RuneScape Classic account.

There were originally only regular trees and bronze axes when the game first came out. When members were introduced into the game, oak trees were added. However, Jagex later updated the game and introduced many more trees once they created the Fletching skill. Free-to-play players could still only chop regular trees, though.
Unlike RS2, in RSC, chopping trees takes more time, as you can 'slip and fall' and fail to cut the tree, and have to try to cut it again. However, you could continue to cut logs with a full inventory. Excess logs would be automatically dropped on the ground. In very early days, player had to use the axe on a tree to cut it, requiring a lot of clicks.

Only the logs of normal trees can be burnt, and you can burn logs anywhere, even banks. You have to drop the logs before you could burn them. Experience allocated per log depends on the Firemaking level itself. It is the only skill to work this way, meaning experience is gained more quickly as levels are gained. Before Fletching was added, Woodcutting worked the same way. After the update, some players (especially free users) complained that regular logs didn't give as much experience as they used to.

Before the introduction of pickaxes of different materials, there was only one type of pickaxe. Pickaxes couldn't be used as weapons. In Mining originally, rocks wouldn't change colour when there was ore present. Thus, players had to prospect each rock which led to repetitive clicking. It wasn't until the introduction of Fatigue that rocks began to show when they had ore in them. Furthermore, you didn't automatically hit the rock; you had to click every individual hit. Before even that, player had to use pickaxe on a rock instead of just clicking on a rock. New pickaxes of all kinds came out that could hit multiple times per click. Prospecting rocks remained a part of RS2 for a long time after taking over, requiring players to prospect each rock to find out what type of ore it contained, despite of the colour showing the type of ore.

Smithing used to be one of the hardest skills in RuneScape Classic. Often, players would have to make the bars themselves or buy the certificates and uncert them. Then, they would have to go through a few options to decide which item to make. This makes Smithing a tedious and concentrating skill in RuneScape Classic.

For a long time, bones and big bones were the only forms of experience for Prayer, which made it very hard to train. It wasn't until someone suggested making dragon bones that there was anything better, and those were the only three bones available until RS2, besides bat bones, but they were very rarely used. There were two types of protection prayers that time: "Paralyze Monster", which would work the same way as "Protect from Melee" but wouldn't work against players, and "Protect from Missiles", which would completely protect the player from Ranged used by other players. Enemy monsters did not have an ability to use Magic or Ranged.
In the very early days of RuneScape Classic, prayer was divided into two parts: PrayGood and PrayEvil.

An old RSC skills interface depicting Tailoring, Influence, and good and evil versions of Prayer and Magic.

Magic, like Prayer, was divided into two parts: GoodMagic and EvilMagic in the earlier days. The evil magic spells were Confuse, Thick Skin, Shock Bolt, Elemental Bolt and Fear, and the good magic spells were Chill Bolt, Burst of Strength, Camouflage, Rock Skin and Wind Bolt. All magic spells, including non-combat magic, could be "failed" - the player would keep their runes but be unable to cast spells for 20 seconds. It was less likely for the player to fail spells at a higher level. Autocasting did not exist back then. Because runes were less common on RuneScape Classic, they gave far more experience.

The Magic skill within RuneScape Classic determines what spells you can cast; to see all your spells, click on the Spell book icon, and the magic menu will be brought up. From there, you can select spells to cast. The colour of the spell name tells you if you can cast it or not. If the spell appears black, then your Magic level is not high enough to use it. If the spell name appears in white, this means you are proficient enough to use this but have not got the required runes to cast it. If a spell name appears in yellow, then you have everything you need to cast that spell. When you want to cast a spell, just click on the spell name, and then click onto a target.

Prior to the introduction of RuneScape 2, in the 2-D game, most spells were represented by a simple, flying blue star, which proved difficult to distinguish from arrows, which were green stars. Also, in the original RuneScape, wearing full armour did not have a penalty on magic accuracy.

A player using Ranged to kill another in RuneScape Classic.

In RuneScape Classic, each spell gives the fixed experience using the formula 2 * spell level + 20. Jagex explains that the reduction of Magic experience in RuneScape 2 was due to the fact that runes were easier to obtain on the new version.

Influence was the predecessor to Quest Points. The only way to gain Influence was to complete quests. A player with a high Influence level could sell silk to the silk trader in Al Kharid for more coins than usual. Influence has since been removed from RuneScape Classic, in favour of the now used quest points.

Tailoring was an early Crafting skill dedicated to tanning and crafting leather. At the time, few players trained it because of its tediousness and very limited purpose as players could only make gloves, boots, and leather armour with the skill. Tailoring was later removed when it was merged with Crafting.

Armour had many differences in RuneScape Classic—one of the main being that male and female armour differed. Female tops had more curved shape and lower neckline with plates on the shoulders and gauntlets (part of the top). The skirt went all the way to the ground. In the case of male armour, it went for a more muscled approach, though the entire upper body was covered right down to the hands. The legs had a rather baggy look, sometimes being referred to as "snow pants." Some players were slightly annoyed by the fact that male characters were blocked from wearing female plate, even though female characters could wear male or female plates as they wished.

There was an NPC named Thrander just south of the east bank in Varrock that could switch male platebodies and platelegs to female platebodies and plateskirts for free, but he disappeared during the transition to RS2, as players discovered an easy way to obtain money from purchasing cheaper female counterparts and converting them for more expensive male counterparts. There was no longer any need for him seeing as the new RS2 plates change when worn by a character, and skirts and legs are separate items with different prices.

Another key difference was that plate could not be worn at the same time as gloves, and legs couldn't be worn at the same time as boots. However, if a character wore chainmail, they could wear gloves. Some player killers preferred wearing chainmail in order to wear gloves and get the slight Attack boost gained at the expense of some Defence.

In very early RuneScape Classic, there was an equipment stat called "Hiding". It was to be used to make aggressive monsters not notice players and thus not attack them. Hiding was later removed.

Another difference in early RSC was players did not need Attack/Defense requirements for weapons/armour. This allowed for pure PKers to have 1 Attack and Defense with full rune.

In RuneScape Classic, there weren't any dialogue boxes with NPCs. All the dialogue was yellow text overhead the player and NPC. A non-player character could talk to only one player at a time. That meant that the competition over who got to talk to NPC when a new shop or quest was released, was very high, and it often took several minutes to finally get to talk to an NPC. That would also allow grieving for intentionally delaying the dialogue. There also weren't right-click options for shopkeepers, bankers, etc. to quickly open the shop or bank screen.

The bank in RuneScape Classic was much more difficult to use. For example, players could only withdraw or deposit limited amounts of items at a time, so trading large amounts of items was very time-consuming; however, Jagex updated RS Classic and added a deposit/withdraw "X" option. Also, since only one player could talk to an NPC at any given time, using the bank in crowded trading areas was very tricky and was very time consuming.

Fatigue was introduced to combat autoers. Using skills would increase fatigue until it reached 100%, at which point players could not receive any more experience, making it impossible to train for certain periods of time. Players were taught about fatigue by the Fatigue expert. At first, players could only reduce it by sleeping in beds located in nearby houses or buildings, but then after a while sleeping bags were introduced. They did not reduce fatigue as quickly as beds. Either way, it was necessary to type in a random word to wake back up again. It was introduced shortly before RuneScape 2.

The concept was greatly disliked despite the fact that the time it took to actually train skills was balanced by taking less attempts to successfully mine rocks and catch fish. It went through a few revamps before being dropped entirely in the transition from RuneScape Classic to RuneScape 2. It was believed to have been dropped because most, if not all autoers, had programs called "autosleepers" that would type the random word in. Currently, RuneScape Classic has a program where if players stand in one spot for too long, they will be logged out. The removal of fatigue in RuneScape 2 also came about due to the addition of Random Events, which were designed to prevent large-scale macroing/autoing.

Before RS2, trading large numbers of items was much more of a hassle. At first, the only way to create stackable items out of those that couldn't be stacked normally was to turn them into certificates, or "certs" as they were referred to. Lobsters, sharks, coal, and certain logs could be traded for certs - 5 items for 1 cert. This was done by Niles, Giles, and Miles, who were located in what is now the Draynor Village market. In RS2, these certs were replaced by notes, which can be withdrawn from a bank in the form of a piece of paper with a picture of the item and a number on it, and many items can be withdrawn as such. With the creation of new random events, Niles, Giles, and Miles can be seen making cameos as a Random Event. The "certs" remain the only way to transfer large amounts of items in Classic.

All weapons had the same speed, so the Rune 2h sword was used by almost all free-to-playPKers. Members used Dragon weapons or Mage Arena staves. Once attacked, a player could not run away for three rounds of combat so pures worked to get high enough Strength to kill their opponents in three hits. There was no running in RuneScape Classic, so "catching" was a vital skill. Generally, the good PKers needed to keep their opponents in battle in order to stop them from running away. They timed their attacks with the opponent's attempt at running away. This way, as soon as the opponent would try to escape, they would immediately be trapped in the fight for another three rounds.

Plus, you could only eat out of combat, so it made things hectic as a player waited to get a chance to run and eat, then try to eat as much as possible before combat started again. There was also a great number of "wine pures" who were pures that decreased their Attack level below 8 using the wine trick in order to gain pure Attack experience from hitting dummies in Varrock. A slight advantage can be gained in the sense that their Hitpoint levels would be lower than traditional pures, while their Strength would be higher. If they hit first in combat, they would be able to hit one to two damage more, and thus have a greater chance of three-hitting somebody. With the RS2 update, the functionality of dummies was removed as it looks at your maximum Attack level rather than your current. Also, player-killing was not limited to the Wilderness at first. The only place where players weren't subject to attack from other characters was in Lumbridge, or if they designated themselves as NPK's (non-player killers). The second option could only be changed twice, and it was eventually taken out of the game.

Duelling used to be possible at any location at any time provided that both duellers were in a member's world. All the player had to do was right click on a player, and "Duel" would be an option along with "Walk here", "Follow", and "Trade". It was often used as a cheap and easy way to return to Lumbridge, since dying in a duel would send the player back there, but if nothing was staked, nothing would be lost. This made Lumbridge a hotspot for duels.

Many players have complained about the removal of this feature, which was removed, because with the introduction of running in RS2, players could now run during any point of battle without ending the battle. Players would be able to fight all around the world, or bank the staked items if it was not moved to the Duel Arena.

One more thing players liked about the ability to duel anywhere in the world was that if someone came to take over your spot, you could challenge them to a duel for who gets to stay there for the spot instead of switching worlds to find a less crowded area to train.

RuneScape Classic has 50 quests. There are 17 free quests and 33 members quests. No new free quests were released in RuneScape Classic after membership was started on 28 February 2002, and since then, there have been only three new free-to-play quests released in Old School RuneScape, the latest being The Corsair Curse. The quest journal lists the free quests in alphabetical order, but the members quests in chronological order. Legends' Quest is quest number 50. See listing of quests.

New quests in RuneScape Classic were very difficult to complete shortly after release because only one player can talk to an NPC at a time. This resulted in large crowds in the quest area. Jagex tried to negate this by adding duplicates of key NPCs in the quest. Busy banks were similarly difficult to use for the same reason, as only one player could talk to a banker at a time.

A major complaint of those who remain loyal to RuneScape Classic over RuneScape is that there are too many players who use macros to make playing it worthwhile. These players regularly complain to Jagex to do something about the problem, but as Jagex considers RuneScape Classic to be, more or less, an abandoned project, they are reluctant to allocate resources to combat the problem. Jagex, however, has posted on the RuneScape website that macroing will not be tolerated on RuneScape Classic.
Another complaint was that the segregation of RS1 to only allow member-made players who chose to stay F2P in Classic was unfair now that they have to buy membership in order to keep their items and account.
RuneScape Classic currently features no Hiscores or Knowledge Base (now called Game Guide). However, Jagex has stated before in a Behind the Scenes article for January 2004 that they were planning to add them in 2005, although this has yet to happen.

Originally, there were classes from which players could choose. This feature was removed in early July 2002. Tutorial Island was released in the following September.

Depending on the class chosen, new players would start with a higher level in the appropriate skill at a compensation of lower skill levels in other areas. For example, a miner would start with level 5 Mining, but they would also start with 9 Hitpoints.

Mark Gerhard (Mod MMG) has stated that a new server of RSC may be brought back for all players to enjoy. [1] The new server will be essentially the same as normal RSC, only players can set their levels, spawn items, and add cheats into the game. This is done to make bots and gold selling unnecessary, also to allow players to be able to get items they can't obtain during the regular RuneScape game. It will be completely independent of the current RSC game and as such, normal RSC worlds will not be affected. However, on the 25th of November, it has been mentioned that for the player-owned servers idea, "we have decided not to proceed with it in Classic at this point: the game is working fine as it is, with new people playing it, and there’s no reason to continue with such a big project with the numbers of players in Classic as they currently are." With the final re-opening of RuneScape Classic over with, it is likely that new server idea has been scrapped.

Since the release of RS2, Jagex has maintained that RuneScape Classic would no longer be updated. Nevertheless, the game has seen a few minor updates, such as:

Before RuneScape Classic was re-opened on 1 June 2010, there were duplicates of some characters in a single world. Most players suppose this is because players can't talk to a character who's already being spoken to. (ex. King Shareen on the ground floor of the Grand Tree.)

In the very early version of RuneScape Classic, when someone said something offensive, it would be filtered to say "Cabbage" to replace that specific word. When this feature was first implemented, a humorous glitch endured for an entire day in which anything said by any player came out as "Cabbage."

In the early days, an FPS meter could be found at the bottom right corner of the screen. This is now possible using the developer console.

In the beginning of RSC, sometime during January 2001, it was mentioned by the developers of RuneScape that the following were needed to "create" the game:

Over 120000 map tiles make up the huge world

Over 800 frames of animation for the monsters and players

Over 200 different objects to find and trade (200 Items)

Over 2900 items of scenery with over 100 different designs

Over 250 characters all walking around the map, with over 75 different designs

After RS2 was released, it was said that players who have not logged into RuneScape Classic for a period of six months would have their account wiped. This no longer appears to be true.

In RS2, when pointing at someone's name in Friends List who have changed their display name, it says Last known as: (display name). In RSC it says: Formerly: (display name).